Optimus Prime: Country Club Detective

Going through some files, found this script to an abandoned sketch show project for a theater company I was working for.

Here's the main theme/stage direction: it's one continuous bit, someone walks in with a MP Optimus Prime figure, says his two lines, and then remains silent and still while all the other castmembers take turns, as in the script, as if this were a film trailer or TV spot or something. It'd be live, with the announcer serving as the cuts for the 'commercial.' That's the action, each character coming up to the toy and interacting. The sketch is obviously a few minutes long. I don't know if it's worth going to all the trouble to perform this live. Doesn't matter, the sketch show never materialized.

I completely forgot about this. And for good reason. Oh, it was for "rejected shows." We made up shows that were being rejected.

Semi-updates! Coming soon!

Hola, amigos!

1. I will have a toy review! Probably late next week! Woo! (or the week after.)

2. Hey! Visit ROBOTS WITH COFFEE because I've added reviews there. Not for toys! But for movies and video games and albums! Please go! Check it out! It's AWESOME!

Make sure you visit Angry Canadian Decepticon (Who has a podcast) and Optimal Omega and Til All Are Mine and all the other blogs on the right "other blog" bar.

I'm off to bed. VISIT ROBOTS WITH COFFEE. DO IT. DO IIIIIIIIIIIIIT!

Botcon / Changes

1. I went to Botcon this year. Photos to appear soonish...

2. ...but maybe on another site. Maybe on a specific site where I do specific thing.

That site being (drumroll) ROBOTS WITH COFFEE.

DOT COM.

So, after about a year of activity on FB and Twitter where I got to meet people and go places because of the dopey robots and pictures of toys and coffee, I decided I needed to do something to centralize Robots With Coffee and maybe make something of it beyond me (and some friends) taking pictures of coffee. There's a fake robot cartoonist we all know and love who needs a home, for starters. But there's some other things that I've wanted to do for a long time and RwC presents an opportunity to do so. I enjoyed making Everyone Loves Gears but as I got better at making those, I realized I could shoot higher as far as an actual story and with more than just one gag through the whole thing.

I'm also buying fewer toys. I like Alpha Bravo, I'm glad everyone digs Combiner Wars, but I'm either not impressed or just plain not enjoying it. It's not for me. And at the Botcon reveal of Sky Lynx The Combiner, well, is every G1 character going to be turned into a limb? I'm sure it's successful and Hasbro is enjoying the returns. I hope they are! But beyond Victorion (and even she herself) I'm not interested in anything that's not a new character or G1 that hasn't been Classic/Generation'd yet. Maybe we'll get more Headmasters like Brainstorm. Maybe I'll get Devastator. I don't know!

But if I get more figures, I'll mention it or even review it here. If I find something funny, something interesting, maybe I'll talk about it here.

I like my action figures! I love "the guys!" But I love what I tripped and fell into a few years ago. So I'm gonna work on creatin' something and run with it, even if it means...at the expense of my collection. OH NO! Not really.

So go to Robots With Dot Com Money every day and look at the comics and some classic (and new) robot coffee pics. Stay tuned. I'll update big developments here if they happen. If I can't get the big plans off the ground, I'll be happy happy to keep drawing some silly strips and posting silly robot coffee pictures on the site, and on FB and Twitter.

That's it for now. Some Botcon pics soon.

(from my art blog) MORT! GUEST ARTIST!

Mort Inkingbot had a fill in artist, Kousuke Sasaki. I did the inks.

Latest Acquisitions - Combiner Wars wave 1

I haven't been posting about the toys. It's been more work for me to walk over, grab my camera, taking a few pics, resizing them, uploading, than it is to draw pictures and edit them and then upload them...

Okay, what REALLY is going on: drawing is just WAY. TOO. FUN. I am having a blast belting out dopey robots and Mort Inkingbot comic strips. Also, since I wasn't all that impressed with the lone figure from the new cartoon that I purchased, beyond Combiner Wars, I'm just interested in buying new figures.

And even with Combiner Wars, I'm..."meh." I never liked the Scramble City figures nor the combiners they...combined into. So with the new deluxes, I picked up Alpha Bravo and REALLY dug him, and still do. Silverbolt, the Voyager center figure of the combiner? Pretty good. Pretty cool.

Skydive and Firefly from this wave are airplanes and...this is where the series loses me. The transforming is similar to Alpha Bravo's, but like their original Scramble City counterparts, they looks like blocky robots with airplanes attached. They exist to be limbs. They're not more impressive than that. The plane parts are either flimsy wings or shells on their backs. The robot body is virtually the same for all of them, yet the transformation from robot to vehicle don't seem as fun for these two planes as it does for Alpha Bravo.

The last figure in this wave is Dragstrip, who is the Decepticon race car that forms part of Menasor. He's kind of an ugly robot, but as a figure he's very solid. His race car mode is also pretty awesome. I don't know why some of these figures seem flimsy in one form or another (Skydive & Firefly, so far) while others are consistent in both vehicle and robot form (Dragstrip, the still ultra fun Alpha Bravo). 

If the last Aerialbot is as weak as Skydive/Firefly, then I might pass on the rest of this series, save for a few figures like First Aid (for the MTMTE shelf), and if there's anything truly different beyond color themes and new heads. Will getting a new Mirage or Sunstreaker that are repaints of Stunticons be worth it? Open ended!

FINALLY! Powerglide. He looks like his G1 bad self, he's got a 3rd mode where he's kind of a weird shotgun for Superion. His tailfin fell off during transformation, so there's a bit of flimsiness, so please be careful. I never got the overly large Universe figures from a few years ago, but I like having a little version that replaces the G1 minibot (of which is broken, D'oh!).

Okay, so, bought some toys, enough to make a (slightly mismatched) Combiner, and some are cool and some are not, and I'm probably going to skip a few figures. Powerglide is pretty cool too. I am looking forward to Ultra Magnus and Devastator.

Not much else to add. More silly drawings soon.

Lost Light Insider goes ONLINE!

Not really. I'm not making an app, come on.

Hey look, more dopey robots.

I spent all day Saturday scanning some images. They're on Tumblr but I'll link them here.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

enjoy. Hopefully Robo Goddess Of Blankets and Cuddletron become real toys some day...

Holy bajeezus. Combiner Wars DEVASTATOR, Ultra Magnus & Minimus Ambus

That's the news. There's a lot of news. Much thanks to Collecticon and Radio News Cybertron and all the good people who went to Toyfair on Valentine's Day to report on and take pictures of toy robots.

There's a lot. There's the new Robots In Disguise figures...um, some new Kreo sets...and a bunch of new combiner figures. Remolds, retools, whathaveyou.

Then there's Devastator. That's a link to TFW2005 by the way. Not Prowlestator, which a lot of IDW fans would love. It's as G1 as you can get. The complaints from the internets: some of the figures don't have elbows or knees (or both). I'm not paying attention to who doesn't have what. You can probably figure it out from the pictures. Because of the size and the combination, there's some hollowness to the figures. A lot of recent Voyagers seem hollow and clunky and maybe the Constructicons would be in the same way. Then there's the issue of Devastator's head, that it's too small. And it looks pretty small.

I'm looking at the photos and reading some of the comments from people staring at Devastator at the convention and the whole thing looks pretty awesome. That Scrapper is as tall (or even taller?) than G1 Devastator? He looks solid. Solid and hilariously G1. I'm so glad that I didn't buy Hercules or Giant. Those figures looked cool but as individual figures they didn't look like their G1 selves. How important is that? For me, a person that a toy corporation doesn't need to cater to, I'm stoked.

But where are the balls? Like in the movie?

And then Ultra Magnus? I heard there'd be a new one, but meh. I have no interest in more Ultra OH WAIT, this one is based on MTMTE? IT WILL HAVE A MINIMUS AMBUS FIGURE? Yes, it includes a Minimus that fits inside of Ultra Magnus (who has giant shoulder missiles that become part of a hammer). The only think I can think of is "oh, wouldn't it be cooler? If it were the kind of thing where Magnus was really a suit that you put over Ambus' legs and arms, and not a Battletech or Titanfall type figure that Minimus is basically a pilot of? I know that that's not the intention, but still..."

But still. Happy smiles all around. Kudos to Hasbro for giving it a shot and especially to all the people who work on the IDW comics for not just making great comics but for influencing the toy corporation to make the toys this way.

Gush gush gush. Okay, seriously, next post I'll be writing about what I think of Superion, mainly CW Firefly.

NOT RELATED TO ANYTHING: I doodled Trailbreaker on a date with Mistress of Flame, a character featured in the (hopefully) ongoing Windblade series this summer.

Combiner Wars!

Guess what I got?

Yeah, I picked up some Combiner Wars figures. On a whim and with the help of a gift card I bought CW Alpha Bravo and the latest cartoon star Strongarm from the RiD (cartoon, not comic) series premiering in March.

As far as RiD goes, I'm excited to have Sideswipe as a main character and so Strongarm would be some kind of test on quality for that cartoon's line. I will discuss that later. I picked up Alpha Bravo because the store had this brand new Deluxe figure on sale so why not? I didn't really want to jump on board with this because though I like having new Generations versions of G1 figures, I was never a fan of the "Scramble City" style of combiners. Their tiny heads and transformation to robots that were far less imaginable than the Minibots. Even the Micromasters have better robot modes, but that's my opinion.

Well, Alpha Bravo is a surprisingly sturdy figure. And his helicopter mode is pretty cool too. The coolest thing about this figure is getting him from robot to helicopter. The transformation of his legs, which open and then surround his robothighs, is a contrast to the simple transformation of the rest of his body. Pretty impressive.

The packaging is kind of ridiculous, as in questionable. It's not so much the frequent references to his being a limb for Superion, but that there's no info about Alpha Bravo on the back of the packaging card. He comes with a trading card. On the front side, the box art. The back side? A giant Autobot logo. Wait, REALLY? You've got to be kidding me. What an opportunity for a deeper bio and tech specs! That's why you go to the trouble to include a trading card!

I'll have a picture or two next post about toys. I picked up Silverbolt and there's more to say but he's special for his combiner mode and that's what I think most fans are going to focus on and remember about this series.

Okay, I hope you are all well.